FAQ – ATMO-ACCESS

Eligibility

1. Who can apply for transnational access to an ATMO-ACCESS Facility? arrow_circle_up

Any person, team, from any sector, including public and private sector, wishing to access and make use of services provided by ATMO-ACCESS facilities can apply for transnational access.
Young scientists, scientists who have never used atmospheric facilities in their research before, companies and private sector users are particularly welcome. ATMO-ACCESS promotes gender equality in scientific research and specifically encourages applications from women.

N.B.! Users from potential ACTRIS National Facilities seeking support from Central Facilities are not eligible, as Central Facilities services are covered by the ACTRIS ERIC funding scheme.

2. Does the user have to register a profile somewhere to fill in the online application form? arrow_circle_up

The online form requires to create an account on the PASS platform powered by Surveymonkey accessible at: https://passactris.smapply.io/
Any questions regarding the application process can be sent to ATMO-ACCESS TNA Team (tna@atmo-access.eu).

NB: if the form doesn’t open by clicking on the link, copy and paste it in the browser bar.

3. What is a user group? arrow_circle_up

A User-group is a team of researchers (users) led by a ‘user group leader’. A user group caN be formed by members From different organisations and countries. Users may be members of an Institute or company unit or department, etc. Each user group is led by a single user group leader, irrespective of the number of members and organizations involved.

4. Can researchers hosted by an institution that is beneficiary in the ATMO-ACCESS project profit from the Transnational Access (TA) to partner institutions, or are they excluded from TA to project beneficiaries? arrow_circle_up

H2020 regulations do not explicitly prevent any researcher working for a beneficiary from applying for access under the grant, provided that the requested access is for an infrastructure located in a different country from where the researcher works and that this request is evaluated on the same competitive ground than the other requests (no privileged treatment).

In brief, provision of access to consortium members is possible, but it should not be at all the rule. If a project serves only its consortium, this means that it has not been able to sufficiently open its infrastructures to the concerned scientific community and therefore it has missed one of the main objectives of an IA.

5. Can non-EU users participate? arrow_circle_up

It is important to distinguish here between affiliation and nationality. What matters for the access is the affiliation as the H2020 rules prescribe that access for user groups with a majority of users not working in an EU (here it means European Union) or associated country (associated to the H2020 program) is limited to 20% of the total amount of units of access provided under the grant.

According to this rule, the answer is YES, with two clarifications/possibilities:

Users working in non-EU countries who are members of a user group where the majority of the users work in an institution established in an EU Member State or Associated State can have access to any infrastructure/facility/installation with no limits.
In the case where a user group is constituted by a majority of users not working in an EU or associated country, access to any infrastructure/facility/installation is limited to 20 % of the total amount of units of access offered for that facility.

6. Which are the countries associated to the H2020 programme? arrow_circle_up

The following countries are associated to Horizon 2020:

Regarding the United Kingdom, with the Withdrawal Agreement, UK researchers can
continue to participate in EU programs, including Horizon 2020, until their closure (i.e., for
the lifetime of grants) and under equivalent conditions as researchers from the EU Member
States.

7. Can users access infrastructures/facilities in their home country? arrow_circle_up

H2020 rules prescribe that the user group leader and the majority of the users must work in a country other than the country(ies) where the installation is located (transnationality principle).

Based on that, the answer is YES users can access infrastructure located in the same country in which they work, but only as members of a user group where the leader and the majority of users work in a country other than the country where said infrastructures/installations are located.

Also, to be noted that priority is given to user groups composed of users who are working in countries where no equivalent research infrastructure exists.

Type of access

8. What is the difference between remote transnational access and virtual access? arrow_circle_up

Remote trans-national access is access to resources and services offered by the infrastructure/facility/installation without Users physically visiting the infrastructure/facility/installation.

Similar to Physical access, it requires competitive selection of the users to be served under the GA as usually it applies to resources that are not unlimited (e.g. computing hours on a supercomputer, digital tools or measurements/experiments performed by the facility staff for the user).

On the contrary, virtual access is wide, free access provided through communication networks to resources that can be simultaneously used by an unlimited number of users (e.g. a dataset available on the Data Centre).

Costs

9. Are the costs for user travel and accommodation covered? arrow_circle_up

ATMO-ACCESS provides users with a budget to reimburse travel and local subsistence costs. Such budget is available upon request and is only intended to facilitate TNA but cannot always guarantee full reimbursement of travel expenses of the participating users.

The amount of financial support to travel expenses will be decided on a case-by-case basis after proposal evaluation and in agreement with the facility operator.

Q.10. What is included in the access? arrow_circle_up

The access includes the service requested and the related logistical, technological and scientific support as well as the specific training that may be needed. Limited financial support for contributing to the travel and subsistence costs of users can be available upon request (see Q.9).

Q.11 Can instrument shipping, transport and insurance costs be reimbursed? arrow_circle_up

A contribution to these costs is possible in case of remote access and of a combination of physical and remote access. The financial support available for instrument shipping is meant to contribute to (not cover entirely) the user expenditures.

The amount and conditions of the financial contribution to the shipping costs will be evaluated case-by-case after the TNA selection and considering the details of the planned access.

Eligibility

Type of access

Costs

Rechercher